Plenty Of Stuff To Be Talking About...
Jun. 6th, 2007 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magicaddict...but that can come tomorrow, for last weekend, I played Timothy Jared Dyson live.
He lives. Still.
Just about.
The plot of the weekend dropped us into the bunker above what definitely wasn't Resident Evil's Hive about a fortnight after what definitely wasn't Red Queen hermetically sealed the door and the place went quiet. Our job was to get into the bunker, get into the base if we could, but otherwise gain access to the core control computer in the bunker and activate an uplink to The Parasol Corporation's satellite so they could recover their data.
Shut up.
A player party of fifteen, two of which don't play tarantulas in the LT and weren't part of the mercenary company the other thirteen belonged to, one of which was anotherdeck hacker, with a monster crew of five (a couple of which don't play tarantulas in the LT), and two computers to hack into. I felt slightly out of place, but TJ's algorithms in the back of my head were already coming up with one liners and smooth decker banter.
Then, all of a sudden, right out out of left field came his common sense.
Not many people will be privvy to the fact that Dyson has both a survival instinct and a sensible streak about a mile wide when he wants to use it. In tabletop, he only did so once, and had the player party calling him Mr Johnson without a hint of joking around. In the face of the fact that a complete asshole would get absolutely nowhere in the company he was in (even if they did all play tarantulas), he was all quiet and circumspect, still hanging round at the back but only passing conversation with the lawyer (in a suit) and the party's first aid support.
After the armour boys had shot all the bad guys and we got in, we found we had no power, so hacking was out. The other hacker had a twinky energy shield that no-one knew the provenance of (told you he he played a tarantula), so he was able to join the shooters to go out and rebuild the power relays. Power comes up, they come back and other hacker and TJ sit down at their respective computers and break out the cyberdecks. The other guy got the security machine that has access to the CCTV downstairs, whereas I got the core system that could initiate the uplink.
Hacking is really well designed - each file that needs opening (on real computers) has a coded filename. You decode the filename using a alphanumeric grid that represents your skill that gives you a letter, a number or a hit of IC, and the answer is the password to the file.
He got through the countermeasures with not too much trouble, and provided the password to my machine. I proceeded to log on, fly through the preliminary IC and positively slam through the first two firewalls protecting the uplink sequence. There was I, thinking that this hacking crap was easy.
Then I ran into the first Black IC hit in the history of Shadow Wars. Black IC in this system dumps the hacker out of the system, fries the deck and dumps the residual voltage into the hacker's head. Out I go, like the proverbial light, with blood pouring from my ears, nose and eyes.
What followed involves the only time I have undergone open heart massage on a LARP, and also (I imagine) one of the first instances of open brain surgery. With the GMs spraying everyone liberally with blood, a leatherman for a bonesaw and people lying on top of my convulsing body to prevent it from interacting with the forceps in a bad way, the field surgeon did everything to phyysrep sealing the burst blood vessels short of opening my head and actually doing it (just one of the many things you won't see in the LT). The refs were happy enough with the scene that my deck survived and I gained a free hack of my next Black IC hit for my trouble (lying there twitching a bit - everyone else did the roleplay as I saw it).
After that, and realising that he'd only found half the data that the other guy summarily found the rest of, TJ became a very quiet man indeed. Bravado would have got him laughed at, so he retired into himself rather, and became (to my disappointment, but increased survivability) someone who looked out for other people and tried to be sensible. So it went for the rest of the weekend, but no-one seemed to be in the mood for taking the piss.
It seems that is just isn't possible for me to play TJ when he isn't absolutely mustard in the matrix - or something else that makes everyone else shut up and take notice. Not being able to go out shooting was also a problem - no guns, no armour. This will be rectified in time for the next game.
Eventually he got back into the matrix and established the uplink - leaving five hours and counting before we could get out. Then the attacks started - we had long since realised we weren't going to get through the hermetic seal on the door, but other mercs outside seemed determined to give it a go themselves. This caused probably the fastest reaction in my life as, left in the bunker with the first aider while the rest of the party went to try and dig out the merc base (ostensibly because we couldn't shoot, but I imagine they were hoping I'd get myself killed), an enemy merc put his head round the door, levelled a pistol at me and fired.
Lead baloons would have been well impressed.
He missed, but with no gun to fire back with, I feigned death and waited for him to wander off. He checked me for life signs. I stabbed him in the crotch. He shot me and the first aider.
Or not.
The refs had been listening, and didn't think any BBs had issued from the gun, further backed up by the fact that he'd opened up at point blank range, and I didn't feel any pain. He had been empty, and dry fired at us.
Helium baloons would have been well impressed.
The party was on their way back, the uplink finished, when the CCTV cameras recorded a living person downstairs saying he was the only one left, there was something down here with him, and we needed to blow up the base, before blowing his brains out live on camera (more things you won't see in the LT). TJ saw an opporunity to do something permanent away from the interfering eyes of the rest of the party and duly obliged - setting off an absolute stink in Parasol Headquarters, complete indifference to Parasol's complaints in ShadowNet command as we'd done the mission they'd contracted us for, and a mushroom cloud just north of Mallory Park raceway in Leicestershire, rendering the area structurally unsound for a several mile radius.
He'll be back - with a gun, armour, and the ability to crack wise and back it up.
_____________
Seriously, this event was great. Yes, it was played by mostly tarantulas, staffed by mostly tarantulas, run by tarantulas and the OOC banter was about how they were planning to stab up various unicorns, but it was Shadowrun live, and there's both a progression system, so I can get better, and a faction system, so while Parasol hate my guts there are several other corps who just started smiling at me.
Lots of thought had gone into what happened. I liked the ideas of using real computers to hack with, a complete time out to eat, and IC mobile phones and radios that physrepped a direct connection to our support crew that could organise supply drops, thermal scans to find out how many people were surrounding us, extra knowledge etc. for a price. Even the biochemical research on Parasol's computers we hacked was real, courtesy of the OOC professional biochemist on the staff - what the two hackers actually nicked from the scene was Catherine's raw data and lab books from her thesis. This was slightly off-putting as, IC, TJ was thumbing through it with not a clue what it was on about, while OOC I was thinking "I get that, I get that, hmm...novel procedure, I get that...".
I look forward to seeing what they do next - and I want to know who you have to get into bed with in order to come out with the twink energy shield.
He lives. Still.
Just about.
The plot of the weekend dropped us into the bunker above what definitely wasn't Resident Evil's Hive about a fortnight after what definitely wasn't Red Queen hermetically sealed the door and the place went quiet. Our job was to get into the bunker, get into the base if we could, but otherwise gain access to the core control computer in the bunker and activate an uplink to The Parasol Corporation's satellite so they could recover their data.
Shut up.
A player party of fifteen, two of which don't play tarantulas in the LT and weren't part of the mercenary company the other thirteen belonged to, one of which was another
Then, all of a sudden, right out out of left field came his common sense.
Not many people will be privvy to the fact that Dyson has both a survival instinct and a sensible streak about a mile wide when he wants to use it. In tabletop, he only did so once, and had the player party calling him Mr Johnson without a hint of joking around. In the face of the fact that a complete asshole would get absolutely nowhere in the company he was in (even if they did all play tarantulas), he was all quiet and circumspect, still hanging round at the back but only passing conversation with the lawyer (in a suit) and the party's first aid support.
After the armour boys had shot all the bad guys and we got in, we found we had no power, so hacking was out. The other hacker had a twinky energy shield that no-one knew the provenance of (told you he he played a tarantula), so he was able to join the shooters to go out and rebuild the power relays. Power comes up, they come back and other hacker and TJ sit down at their respective computers and break out the cyberdecks. The other guy got the security machine that has access to the CCTV downstairs, whereas I got the core system that could initiate the uplink.
Hacking is really well designed - each file that needs opening (on real computers) has a coded filename. You decode the filename using a alphanumeric grid that represents your skill that gives you a letter, a number or a hit of IC, and the answer is the password to the file.
He got through the countermeasures with not too much trouble, and provided the password to my machine. I proceeded to log on, fly through the preliminary IC and positively slam through the first two firewalls protecting the uplink sequence. There was I, thinking that this hacking crap was easy.
Then I ran into the first Black IC hit in the history of Shadow Wars. Black IC in this system dumps the hacker out of the system, fries the deck and dumps the residual voltage into the hacker's head. Out I go, like the proverbial light, with blood pouring from my ears, nose and eyes.
What followed involves the only time I have undergone open heart massage on a LARP, and also (I imagine) one of the first instances of open brain surgery. With the GMs spraying everyone liberally with blood, a leatherman for a bonesaw and people lying on top of my convulsing body to prevent it from interacting with the forceps in a bad way, the field surgeon did everything to phyysrep sealing the burst blood vessels short of opening my head and actually doing it (just one of the many things you won't see in the LT). The refs were happy enough with the scene that my deck survived and I gained a free hack of my next Black IC hit for my trouble (lying there twitching a bit - everyone else did the roleplay as I saw it).
After that, and realising that he'd only found half the data that the other guy summarily found the rest of, TJ became a very quiet man indeed. Bravado would have got him laughed at, so he retired into himself rather, and became (to my disappointment, but increased survivability) someone who looked out for other people and tried to be sensible. So it went for the rest of the weekend, but no-one seemed to be in the mood for taking the piss.
It seems that is just isn't possible for me to play TJ when he isn't absolutely mustard in the matrix - or something else that makes everyone else shut up and take notice. Not being able to go out shooting was also a problem - no guns, no armour. This will be rectified in time for the next game.
Eventually he got back into the matrix and established the uplink - leaving five hours and counting before we could get out. Then the attacks started - we had long since realised we weren't going to get through the hermetic seal on the door, but other mercs outside seemed determined to give it a go themselves. This caused probably the fastest reaction in my life as, left in the bunker with the first aider while the rest of the party went to try and dig out the merc base (ostensibly because we couldn't shoot, but I imagine they were hoping I'd get myself killed), an enemy merc put his head round the door, levelled a pistol at me and fired.
Lead baloons would have been well impressed.
He missed, but with no gun to fire back with, I feigned death and waited for him to wander off. He checked me for life signs. I stabbed him in the crotch. He shot me and the first aider.
Or not.
The refs had been listening, and didn't think any BBs had issued from the gun, further backed up by the fact that he'd opened up at point blank range, and I didn't feel any pain. He had been empty, and dry fired at us.
Helium baloons would have been well impressed.
The party was on their way back, the uplink finished, when the CCTV cameras recorded a living person downstairs saying he was the only one left, there was something down here with him, and we needed to blow up the base, before blowing his brains out live on camera (more things you won't see in the LT). TJ saw an opporunity to do something permanent away from the interfering eyes of the rest of the party and duly obliged - setting off an absolute stink in Parasol Headquarters, complete indifference to Parasol's complaints in ShadowNet command as we'd done the mission they'd contracted us for, and a mushroom cloud just north of Mallory Park raceway in Leicestershire, rendering the area structurally unsound for a several mile radius.
He'll be back - with a gun, armour, and the ability to crack wise and back it up.
_____________
Seriously, this event was great. Yes, it was played by mostly tarantulas, staffed by mostly tarantulas, run by tarantulas and the OOC banter was about how they were planning to stab up various unicorns, but it was Shadowrun live, and there's both a progression system, so I can get better, and a faction system, so while Parasol hate my guts there are several other corps who just started smiling at me.
Lots of thought had gone into what happened. I liked the ideas of using real computers to hack with, a complete time out to eat, and IC mobile phones and radios that physrepped a direct connection to our support crew that could organise supply drops, thermal scans to find out how many people were surrounding us, extra knowledge etc. for a price. Even the biochemical research on Parasol's computers we hacked was real, courtesy of the OOC professional biochemist on the staff - what the two hackers actually nicked from the scene was Catherine's raw data and lab books from her thesis. This was slightly off-putting as, IC, TJ was thumbing through it with not a clue what it was on about, while OOC I was thinking "I get that, I get that, hmm...novel procedure, I get that...".
I look forward to seeing what they do next - and I want to know who you have to get into bed with in order to come out with the twink energy shield.
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